Saturday, June 11, 2016

showing the biggest scrap heap in
Europe located near the village of Grybovychi not far from Lviv. Day by day heavy
garbage trucks have been delivering there tons of trash from all Lviv region. There
was never any question of any sort of waste recycling. Now this scrap heap is
covered with clouds of poisonous smoke that you can see at

It is not still clear whether it
was an intentionally set fire or whether the garbage ignited by itself. Two fire
fighters were killed by a big landslide caused by the fire and heavy rain. The
height of the collapsed garbage hill was about 30 meters. To extinguish the
fire local authorities were forced to call for firefighting aircrafts.

But even after this fire is extinguished the
problem of waste disposal remains a burning problem in our country. Not long
ago a TV program dedicated to the so-called “Swedish recycling revolution” has
been broadcast in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians learned that more than 99 percent of all household waste in Sweden is recycled in
one way or another. This means that the country has gone through something of a
recycling revolution in the last decades, considering that only 38 per cent of
household waste was recycled in 1975. Many recycling plants using modern technologies
were built across the country.

Most Ukrainians never knew that Swedes separate
all recyclable waste in their homes and deposit it in special containers in
their block of flats or drop it off at a recycling station. But most impressive
was the fact that Sweden now is not only recycling domestic garbage but is also
importing tons of garbage from Norway.